Pubdate: Thu, 30 Dec 2004
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)
Copyright: 2004 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Contact:  http://www.stltoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/418
Author: Matthew Hathaway, Of the Post-Dispatch
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

AUTHORITIES AIM TO FIGHT METH LABS BY RESTRICTING THE SALE OF COLD PILLS

A cramped office in Union is the unlikely nerve center of a 12-state
lobbying effort that next year will square off against one of the most
powerful forces in American politics - the pharmaceutical industry.

There, in a tiny nook of the Franklin County Sheriff's Department,
Detective Jason "Jake" Grellner is leading a campaign to cut off the
supply of over-the-counter cold pills that have fueled the explosion
of methamphetamine production across the nation's heartland.

"To say that we're excited is an understatement ... 2005 is going to
be our year," said Grellner, who has spent much of the last few weeks
working with legislators and policymakers from across the Midwest.
Their goal: to severely restrict sales of pseudoephedrine, the active
chemical in scores of decongestants and the backbone of the $3 billion
U.S. market for over-the-counter cold remedies.

Earlier this month, Grellner headed up a closed-door strategy session
in St. Louis with about 65 law enforcement leaders, politicians and
legislative aides from as far away as Louisiana and Ohio. They want to
pass state legislation in a dozen states next year that would label
many pseudoephedrine remedies as "Schedule 5 narcotics" that would be
available only at pharmacies and only if shoppers have their purchases
and identities recorded in a database that police can access.

Police estimate that 99 percent of the meth made in the United States
is manufactured using pseudoephedrine pills. The proposed restrictions
would not require a prescription for the medication but would limit
sales. An individual would not be allowed to buy more than three boxes
of the cold pills within a 30-day period.

No restrictions would apply to the sale of pseudoephedrine remedies
sold as gel caps, children's remedies or liquids because they are much
more difficult to convert to meth.

Supporters - led by police and prosecutors - say the Schedule 5
designation would starve meth cooks of the one drug ingredient that is
common in virtually all recipes. They point to Oklahoma, where state
officials say they've seen a 65-percent reduction in meth labs raided
by police since the state enacted Schedule 5 restrictions in April.

Opponents - including lobbies representing convenience stores, gas
stations and the pharmaceutical industry - say law-abiding cold
sufferers will lose access to effective medicines.

The Consumer Healthcare Products Association, an industry group that
represents makers of nonprescription drugs, has successfully fought
off tough restrictions on pseudoephedrine for years. The group won't
talk about how it plans to counter the Schedule 5 campaign, but a
spokeswoman said the group supported less stringent regulations. The
group says it's too early to tell if this year's drop in meth labs in
Oklahoma is the result of that state's crackdown on
pseudoephedrine.

Proposals to put tough restrictions on pseudoephedrine are nothing
new, but they don't often get very far. When police and Big Pharma
square off on the subject, industry usually wins.

But there are signs that the tide could be turning. Last week, Pfizer
Inc. - maker of Sudafed, the leading over-the-counter cold remedy -
announced that next month, it would release Sudafed PE, a decongestant
sold in Europe. Instead of pseudoephedrine, the drug uses as its
active ingredient a chemical called phenylephrine, which can't be used
to make meth. But many police officers remain critical of Pfizer
because they say the company doesn't plan to scale back production of
regular Sudafed.

Grellner, who turned 36 on Sunday, supervises a three-man narcotics
unit that is one of Missouri's leaders in shutting down drug labs. He
runs a federally funded pilot program that educates retailers across
the state on how to recognize meth cooks buying drug ingredients and
lab supplies.

Recently, Grellner has added a task: talking to news organizations
from across the nation - including the CBS program "60 Minutes," which
interviewed him last week - about shutting down what some have called
"the cold-pills connection."

Meth labs are a personal issue for Grellner. In May, 2002, one nearly
killed him. He suffered serious chemical burns in his throat and lungs
after he inhaled too much anhydrous ammonia, a hazardous farm
fertilizer used in some meth recipes. The damage was permanent, and he
sometimes has difficulty breathing normally.

The injury forced Grellner to change the way he works. He can't risk
another exposure to anhydrous ammonia, so his days of kicking down the
doors of meth labs are over. Instead, he's targeting the
over-the-counter decongestants used in virtually all meth recipes.

Grellner likes to compare the nation's meth-lab crisis to a
serpent.

"What we've been doing for years is slapping at the snake's tail with
a shovel. We might be fighting it, but it doesn't do any good," he
said. "But if you cut off the head, the snake dies. It's that simple."

Missouri's law governing pseudoephedrine sales is a compromise with
industry that Grellner helped write in 2003. It regulates where stores
can stock the pills and forbids retailers from selling more than two
boxes in a single sale. But that only makes pill-shopping more
time-consuming for meth cooks, who simply visit dozens of stores to
buy the thousands of pills needed to make a few ounces of meth.

Grellner says he never believed that the law would slow meth
production but that it would force cooks to spend more time in stores,
where they might be noticed by alert police. Grellner said there was
never enough support for Schedule 5 restrictions, until now.

2 different problems

A former prosecutor and retired judge, Keith Rutledge is no bleeding
heart when it comes to crime. As Arkansas' state drug czar, he favors
tough enforcement and long prison sentences. But he says that's not
the way to fight the nation's meth lab crisis, which he and most other
Schedule 5 supporters say is distinct from the country's
meth-addiction epidemic.

"They are different issues," says Rutledge, who attended the St. Louis
meeting organized by Grellner. "We can't eliminate meth use. But if we
make it impossible to get cold pills, we eliminate the meth lab
problem. That means we eliminate the danger to children who grow up in
these places; we eliminate the threat to law enforcement; we eliminate
the environmental damage each of these labs cause."

Most drug experts believe that the vast majority of meth is made in
California and Mexico by a small number of so-called superlabs -
secret workshops that can turn out at least 10 pounds in a single day.
In comparison, few Missouri meth labs produce more than a couple
ounces of the drug.

But dangers of small meth labs exceed their meager production. They
often catch fire or explode, their fumes can poison children living in
homes where the drug is made, and each lab creates about five times as
much hazardous waste as it does finished meth. And the small labs are
plentiful - more than 300 active or abandoned ones were found in
Jefferson County alone this year.

If the small labs disappear, addicts will simply buy drugs made at
faraway superlabs, says Dale Woolery, associate director of Iowa's
Office of Drug Control Policy. But he says that would be a huge
improvement.

Police estimate that 80 percent or more of the meth used in Iowa is
produced somewhere else. But, Woolery said, because labs are such a
serious public safety threat, police have little time or money to
investigate imported meth.

Iowa's Gov. Tom Vilsack proposed Schedule 5 restrictions early this
year, but legislators rejected the idea after heavy lobbying by
industry groups. Woolery said Vilsack would make another push next
year, and that supporters of the restrictions now had momentum - and a
successful example.

The Oklahoma train

"Oklahoma changed everything," says Grellner, who has been pushing
Missouri legislators to adopt Schedule 5 restrictions on
pseudoephedrine for years.

Supporters of the Oklahoma law say it never would have happened
without tragedy. Nik Green, a highway trooper, was shot in the head
execution-style by a meth cook who was making the drug in a car parked
on the side of a road. Green's pleas for mercy were recorded by the
camera in his squad car. The killing enraged Oklahomans, and
legislators unanimously approved the Nik Green Act, the name for the
state's Schedule 5 restrictions.

That opened a door for other states. Police in Arkansas, Kansas and
Missouri say Oklahoma meth cooks are moving into their border counties
and that legislators should push them elsewhere by adopting Oklahoma's
restrictions.

"What states need to decide now is whether to get on the train that
Oklahoma let out of the station, or get run over by it," Grellner
said. "There's 12 states that are going to try for Schedule 5 next
year. Whoever doesn't pass it is (going to) be stuck with a lot of
meth cooks."

State Sen. John Cauthorn, R-Mexico, has prefiled a bill that would
make pseudoephedrine a Schedule 5 drug in Missouri. State Rep. Scott
Lipke, R-Jackson, will file similar legislation in the state House.
Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon backs the restrictions, and
Missouri Republicans said they expected Gov.-elect Matt Blunt to offer
his support. In October, a spokesman with Blunt's campaign told the
Post-Dispatch that Blunt would sign Schedule 5 restrictions into law.

Similar efforts are under way throughout the Midwest. Grellner said
Schedule 5 supporters were targeting Missouri and the states it
borders, which last year accounted for more than half of the nation's
meth labs and related ingredient stockpiles discovered by police.
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MAP posted-by: Derek